Projection
by editorbit
Summary: Jerome is everywhere. He's everywhere, yet nowhere at all because he's dead.


Jerome is everywhere. He's everywhere, yet nowhere at all because he's dead. Jeremiah has visited his grave enough times to know he's buried a safe distance under the surface of the earth. Jerome is dead, like he should be, but not gone.

Jeremiah sees him. Often he sits atop his desk in his office. He wears his atrocious beige, almost cream coloured, suit covered in his own blood, sleeves pulled up to expose the bullet wound in one wrist. The blood stains his white glove. His scarred face bears a smile and eyes follow him wherever he goes. He feels them on him as he stands with his back turned, glass of whiskey in his hand. He feels them as he sits by his screens. They meet his own the second he turns around.

They look so alive. A lifetime, though a fairly short one, fills them. They're filled with hopes and desires, not to mention life. They're nothing but mere projections, along with all of him. If it's the gas in his body, or just the doing of his own imagination, he doesn't know. It doesn't matter. Jerome still sits perched on his workbench, not a word uttered from his scarred lips, gas or no gas behind it all.

He disappears in the blink of an eye and once again Jeremiah is all alone. Though Jerome is still not gone.

Sometimes he appears right by the table with his whiskey. He'll lean against the table with a glass in hand, looking very much like Jeremiah. His scars are gone, as well as all the blood. He's clad in Jeremiah's own clean and proper clothing. The scent of one of Jeremiah's colognes reaches his nose. Anyone else would have made the mistake of thinking it's him, because of how alike they are, or rather were, but it's not him. It's Jerome. He's not wearing any glasses and he downs the drink in his hand in one go, taking no time to savour the flavours like he himself would. He bites back the comment. He's not real, he tells himself. He really isn't real.

He doesn't speak then either, rather staring at him with those eyes. His expression is unreadable and those eyes aren't filled with as much life as they often are. Jeremiah evades his eyes as he waves the projection of his dead brother away, a thought of what could have been finding its way into his head. It disappears along with Jerome. The bottle of whiskey is as full as he left it. He doesn't know why he bothered to check. Jerome is dead after all.

Every so often Jeremiah will enter the office to find the room empty. He checks every corner, every chair and every desk. Finding it once again empty doesn't reassure him in any way. Jerome will be back at some point. In the blink of an eye he'll take a seat in his chair by the screens, spinning around and around while laughing loudly - Jeremiah hears that maniacal laughter echoing in his head for hours afterwards - or he'll sit on the floor by his file drawers in his Arkham uniform and stare blankly into nothing as if he's bored.

Is it the gas, he'll often ask himself, watching Jerome sitting on the desk as he again watches Jeremiah work, or tries to work. If so, why, he'll ask. Why bother with all these random projections? Jerome never even says anything. Is it a fault or is this just what he wanted? Is this supposed to scare him?

Jeremiah feels nothing but slightly uncomfortable, kind of annoyed and ever so slightly... Doubtful. It's an odd emotion he's not sure is artificial and all a part of the gas or if it's genuine.

Jerome doesn't just show up in his office. He'll pop up just about anywhere. Once he sat perched on his bed, suit, gloves and boots back on again. Jeremiah shooed him away, thinking of the sheets, his clean, new sheets. Not a smudge is to be seen when he checks, of course. Jerome is dead.

One time Jeremiah had gone out to buy himself a coffee for once, rather than getting Ecco to get him one or drinking the one he made at home. He'd ordered, black with two sugars, and turned around with his warm coffee in his hand to see Jerome, seated in the far back on a couch with his feet on the table. It was him, no doubt about it. He'd recognised the suit, blood-covered and dirty like he'd crawled right out of his grave, as well as the familiar grin. Jerome's eyes were on him and he did the illogical thing, walking right on over and sitting down by that table. The smell of blood hit him the moment he sat down.

Bringing his cup to his lips, Jeremiah watched him. He waited for him to disappear into the steam that fogged his glasses. Jerome had gotten up and left, slipping past another customer entering the shop. An odd emotion runs through him. He'd never left like that before, never like he was a physical human being.

Sometimes he spots him among the crowds. He'll spot the red head of hair on the street. Jerome will walk down the street like he's no one but a random stranger on their way to work or he'll sit on top of a fence, feet dangling over the edge as he hums to himself, a song Jeremiah barely recognises. A gloved hand will wave and a smile will spread across his face, scarred or not. Jeremiah will continue down the street at a faster pace. Jerome is very much dead, he'll say in his head.

The spot where Jerome lies is starting to grow grass. Little spots of green are scattered across the ground. It calms him to see that. It shows that the grave is untouched. It hasn't been touched since they buried Jerome a few weeks ago. Jerome is as dead as ever, he thinks as he sinks down to his knees to look at the stone. Second time is the charm. Jeremiah lets out a barely audible scoff. Was that really all those cult members could think of? How unimaginative yet so on brand.

Footsteps. The sound reaches Jeremiah's ears and he lowers his head. It's a cult member presumably, coming to pay their respect he assumes, or for the same reason he's here. To check if he's still dead. He is. Jeremiah's stared long enough at the grave to see that no one's touched it. The thought alone visibly relaxes him. Jerome's still dead. All he sees are just projections placed in his mind by the gas. Nothing more, nothing less.

The footsteps come closer and then they stop. Jeremiah can see a silhouette in the corner of his eyes. He can see black, ever so slightly dirty dress shoes and black pants, but nothing more. He has to look at this person - man he figures - to see more. He stays seated, eyes on the untouched grave in front of him.

It's him, isn't it? The footsteps sounded real, very real, but Jerome does every so often look like that. Real. Too real to be a figment of his own imagination. The taunting smiles, the laughter, the details of every single strand of hair to the pattern under his shoes. It all looks so real. Could it be? Could the grave before him be more untouched than he thought? Untouched to the point it has never been used to begin with?

No. Of course not. Jerome is dead. He's seen his dead body on the news and in the papers and heard of the funeral. Jerome was buried.

"He's dead, Jeremiah."

Is he though? Is he really? Jerome of all people in this city would be one to fake his own death, if not then at least come back from the dead. Second time is the charm it says, carved in stone. Second time living or second time rising from the dead?

It takes him a moment to realise the voice is not his own. The obvious fact that it's not slips past him as it's a sentence he's uttered many time before to himself. It helps, a little at least. Because Jerome is dead. Jeremiah knows that, yet something in him tells him - insists - otherwise no matter what. He believes whatever it is sometimes. It's easier than making sense of everything he sees, everything he smells and everything he hears.

Jerome sits right in front of them on his own gravestone. Bruce can't see him, saying nothing. It should be obvious, but his brother looks too real to be all in his head. Jeremiah really wants to believe Bruce. He really does.


End file.
